1951 Ford F1 - Tanoshi

Sometimes, no matter whether the subject is an automobile or a human being, fate can be a funny thing. Take, for example, the 1951 Ford F-1 pickup gracing these pages. Believe it or not, the feature you are reading right now could have just as easily been about a '70 SS396 El Camino.

Our story began when Tak Okamoto of Gardena, California, bought a '51 Ford pickup from a guy who wanted to get out of finishing a street rod project. The old F-1 was a good example of a bad attempt to graft an IFS frontend without any clues about how to go about it. The guy had made such a mess out of trying to hang a Volare clip on the front of the '51's original chassis that Tak opted to leave it behind. Ditching the F-1's 114-inch wheelbase frame opened the door for Tak to consolidate an ongoing project of his own-a '70 SS396 El Camino. The El Camino's 116-inch wheelbase didn't represent a problem for what Tak had in mind. He envisioned a radically customized pickup with numerous body modifications.

Perhaps this might be a good point to provide you with a little information about Tak Okamoto's automotive background. "I have always liked cars and trucks. During my high school days in the late '40s, we used to cruise Bob's Big Boy on Colorado Boulevard out in Southern California's San Fernando Valley because a lot of custom cars would gather there." By '63, Tak had opened up a body shop in Gardena, California, appropriately named the Gardena Body Shop. They specialized in collision repair. Although the shop didn't take on any customizing work, Tak has always admired customs, and spent all his spare time working on them.

After dragging the '51 Ford pickup home in pieces, the next task was to determine which parts would be retained from the El Camino and which ones would be tossed. In the early stages, Wesley Inafuku helped Tak disassemble and cut the El Camino apart. Once they had it down to the rolling chassis, Tak decided he would retain the El Camino's stock ride height, cab floor and firewall. Figuring it was the simplest way to have a transmission tunnel conform around the Turbo 400 tranny, inside the engine compartment the SS396 firewall provides a perfect relief for the 396-inch Chevy engine to nestle into. On the driver's side, the firewall supports a Chevelle SS396 dual master cylinder equipped with a brake booster. The passenger-side firewall was shaved completely smooth.

Tanoshi is a Japanese expression that means happiness doing something one enjoys or looks forward to. To set the '51's stance, Tak poured a tremendous number of hours into the truck's body modifications. Instead of lowering the El Camino chassis, Tak channeled the '51's cab over the frame-rails six inches and sectioned it five inches. Looking at the '51's sides, you'll notice its profile tapers in a wedge shape toward the nose. Tak had to pancake the hood to maintain this look as well as section the front and rear fenders to match the cab. To allow the bed to drop five inches, enabling it to line up with the body lowering (channeling), Tak raised the bed floor. All these procedures required an immense amount of man-hours, but Tak wasn't even halfway through at this stage of the game. Once the major cuts were behind him, Tak handformed sheetmetal to mold in the bed rails, running boards, and dual side-mount spare tires. At the bed's rear, he contoured the tailgate into a custom-made roll pan housing a recessed license plate box. For taillights, the '51 sports a pair of N.O.S. '56 F-100 units flanking the shaved tailgate. Tak got so carried away doing what he enjoys that he ended up molding the running boards into the front and rear fenders, not stopping until he blended the gap between the sectioned cab and the lower bedsides.

Utilizing the El Camino's SS396 package provided the '51 with a readymade high-performance platform. After January '70, SS396 El Caminos switched from 396-inch powerplants to 402-inch units. Tak's donor was an early example sporting a 396 with 350 horsepower. Tak turned to Reed Retroworks in Long Beach, California, to rebuild the smallest Rat motor GM produced. Richard Reed punched the block 30-over and dropped in high-compression slugs. For cam and carburetion, Richard slid in a mild Engle cam with an Edelbrock intake topped with a Holley quad. The Rat's power is transmitted to the 12-bolt Chevelle rearend via a beefed Turbo 400 controlled with a floor-mounted Lokar shifter. Big-block Chevy motors are famous for running a little hot. To handle the additional strain placed on the cooling system from the sectioned frontend's confined quarters restricting airflow, Tak mocked up a 3D template out of cardboard. The full-scale template was then handed over to Mattson Radiator in Stanton, California, which constructed a custom aluminum cross-flow four-row radiator.

Tak Okamoto started on his radical '51 custom in his early 70s. When asked at age 75 about how he viewed the project in retrospect, he said, "Well, after many ruined bifocal glasses, T-shirts, pants, and socks riddled with holes from the die grinder, MIG welder and cutting torch, not to mention many cuts, abrasions, burns, and smashed fingers, what do I have to say? Now that I can drive and enjoy it, it was worth every bit of it." In closing, Tak would like to thank Richard Reed, Marty Swerter, Chuck Wade, and Richard Garver for their help.